Cast-iron rail for railways



UNITED sTATEs PATENT oEEicE.

J. E. RUSSELL, OF BROOKLYN, NEWT YORK.

CAST-IRON RAIL FOR RAILWAYS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 23,269, dated March 15, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, J. E. RUSSELL, of the eastern district of the cityof Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have inventeda new and useful Improvement in Cast-Iron Rails for Railways; and I dohereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exactdescription of the same, reference being had to the accompanyingdrawing, forming part of this specification, in which-d Figure l, is aside view of portions of two lengths of rail of a form adapted forstreets. Fig. 2, is a plan of the same. Fig. 3, is a horizontal sectionof the same. Fig. 4, is a transverse section of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the severalfigures.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I willproceed to describe its construction and operation.

The base A, and head B, of the rail may be of the usual or ahy suitableform. The neck C, whose corrugated form is best illustrated in thehorizontal section, Fig. 3, has its corrugations j, j, extending fromthe base A, to the head B, said corrugations being of such width aspractice may de termine to be the best, and of such depth as to confinethe neck below the head B. The base A, may be solid, or may be lightenedby having an opening a, opposite. to the concave side of eachcorrugation, as shown in Fig. 3, or any other arrangement of openingsthat will not reduce its strength in an injurious degree. Thearrangement of the corrugations should be such that the necks of theadjacent rails will meet at the joint, and I propose to make the neckswith a swell at each side at the ends of the several rails, as shown atb, Z), in Figs. l, 3 and 4, to make the joints strong. To confine theends of these rails together, lat.- erally at the oints, I propose tocast a tenon c, see Fig. 2, on the head of each rail at one end, and atenon CZ, (see Fig. 3) on the base at the opposite end, the said tenonsto enter recesses provided to receive them in the adjacent rails; and toconfine them vertically, I insert between them at every joint inrecesses, provided in each end, for the purpose, a transverse key D,with a broad head e, and base f, the base f, resting on the bases of theboth rails, and the head c, supporting the heads of both rails, as shownin Fig. 1.

In the rails represented in the drawing, which are intended for railwaysin streets, the notches g, g, in the inner edge of the car track L, z.,are intended to facilitate the turning of wagons out of the wagon trackThe sides of these notches are at an angle of about 450, to the sides ofthe rail and at about the same angle to the horizon in a lateraldirection.

By reference to the plan, Fig. 2, of the drawing, in which the form andarrangement of the corrugated neck of the rail is represented in dottedoutline, it will be seen that the support given to the head of the railby the neck is such as to leave a port-ion of it overhanging either sideof the neck all along the rail, as in the ordinary straight-necked rail,but that it is more evenly distributed and is as great near the sides ofthe head as along the center there of, and hence a proper support isobtained for the head with less metal in the neck than is requisite whenthe latter is straight. Besides this advantage the neck being of thisform will, to some extent, be flexible and elastic and will there-foreadapt itself to the unequal contraction of the different parts of therail in cooling, and hence obviate in a great degree, if not entirely,the liability to fracture by such unequal contraction.

I-Iaving described my invention, I claim and desire to secure by LettersPatent,

As an improved article of manufacture, a cast iron railroad rail havingits neck vertically corrugated as herein shown and described.

JAS. E. RUSSELL.

lVitnesses J. IV. Cooinas. HENRY T. BRowN,

